Jameela Jamil opens up about sexuality after coming out as queer: ‘I guess I’m bisexual’
The actor and activist has clarified that she “fancies everyone” after coming out as queer last month.
By Tim Heap
When Jameela Jamil came out as queer last month, it was amidst a conflama around her casting as one of the judges on HBO’s new unscripted voguing competition Legendary.
The world of ballroom – of which voguing is a central part – has largely been inhabited by queer people of colour, as seen in Ryan Murphy’s hit series Pose.
Jamil was accused of “appropriating ballroom culture” and taking a judging spot from someone more closely associated with the world that Legendary is looking to honour and celebrate.
After mounting pressure, Jamil posted a statement on social media stating that she was in fact “queer” and hadn’t come out publicly earlier due to pressures from her background and to avoid “the pain of being accused of performative bandwagon jumping”.
— Jameela Jamil 🌈 (@jameelajamil) February 5, 2020
At the time, she said she didn’t want to talk about the announcement with the press, but now, in a new interview with The Times, she’s opened up about her sexuality – aligning it more with bisexuality or possibly pansexuality than just the umbrella term “queer”.
“People are still kind of stuck in the linear and don’t understand the spectrum of sexuality,” she said.
“I guess I’m bisexual, but also quite fancy everyone. I don’t know if that means that I’m pansexual. But I don’t just fancy cis straight men; I fancy everyone.”
View this post on Instagram
Jamil – best known for her acting work on Netflix comedy The Good Place – is in a relationship with musician James Blake. The pair have been together since 2015.
In a subsequent statement to her coming out post, she described the events that led to it as “a perfect clusterfuck” and encouraged others to come out in their own time.
“Don’t feel bad for hiding it for as long as you need, and move at your own pace,” she wrote. “But feel no shame about getting it off your chest and know you aren’t alone.
“There is a huge community of people who understand you, respect you and stand with you.”